Making dire predictions about Iran's nuclear programs has been a parlor game since the mid-1980s.

Jane's Defence Weekly, a well-respected military-related publication, in 1984 estimated that the Islamic Republic was two years from making an atomic bomb. By 1992, the CIA was predicting an Iranian nuclear weapon by the end of the decade. In 1995, Israel agreed. The breathless warnings have almost never stopped.

What does Iran teach us about how much a determined nation can achieve despite concerted efforts by many world powers to stop it? In recent decades, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have all in secret become nuclear weapons states.